What are you even going on about? Are you saying MS is purposely wasting money putting out slop? How ridiculous.
You might have made more sense if not for the multiple high profile AAA game flops in the past several years beyond those from MS...
How's Ubisoft doing? Is that the same "coincidence"?
"Purposely"? No, I wouldn't agree with that.
But "incompetently"? Sure. If you take your local mechanic and put them in the kitchen of your local restaurant as the cook instead, they aren't ~purposely~ wasting food by turning out terrible meals. They're just turning out terrible meals because they aren't a cook. And unless this mechanic-turned-cook actually takes the time to try new foods to figure out what tastes good and what does not, and the time to learn all the techniques behind making those foods, they aren't going to get any better at making food, either.
This is why people get nervous about non-artists running art businesses. The CEOs of fashion companies all used to design fashion, the head chefs of Michelin star restaurants and their owners/partners all have experience cooking and trying new foods, the music labels (big and small) that attract & host the best talent all have leaders who play music and enjoy live performances. Why would anyone assume game studios should be any kind of exception?
Case-in-point: it seems like Indie studios are the only ones still making games that have fun mechanics, creative writing, and interesting art styles - and that is because Indie studios tend to be run by gamers who also have other skills needed to run their own studio (e.g. business skills, programming skills, etc). Meanwhile, the big studios have all been captured by MBA-bros at this point, who are only focused on minimizing costs and maximizing revenues.
Do major studios occasionally turn fun games that are also money printers? Sure. Games like Fortnite or any of the countless mobile GACHA games being turned out by China are prime examples. Do indie studios still turn out flops or get stuck in development hell to never fully release? Absolutely. There are too many examples to list. But when Bethesda, Activision, EA, etc consistently turn out mediocre-to-bad games, and some of the biggest hits of the last few years have been indie games, I think it does highlight the general issue overall: the people in charge at company's producing art need to at least be able to appreciate the artform itself, and understand what goes into making that art, even if they cannot do it themselves (either due to lack of skills or lack of time anymore).
Putting a former executive of an AI company in charge of a gaming company does not feel like they put an artist in charge. Especially when they seem to not understand the difference between generative AI and the kinds of logic-tree AI games have been using for NPCs since the beginning.
